Today – Stop Garbage Fee Hike/Garbage Service Cut: “Your City” Alert.

Come to St. Pete City Council to stop costly, big brother recycling program. 4 pm, City Hall 175, 4th St. N.. Speak at “open forum” or during “report”. Working to hard to pay your taxes and can’t make it? Email Mayor@stpete.org or Council@stpete.org .

The extremist left running the government of the city of St. Petersburg wants you to pay more for your garbage bill. The same environmental extremists want to force you to sort your garbage – whether you want to or not. The extreme leftist St. Petersburg mayor and city council want to cut the number of garbage pickups to ensure you have no other option but to sort your trash. The Big Brother St. Petersburg government wants to put a radio chip in your trash can to help “educate you” on proper management of your garbage. Welcome to the collectivist city-state of St. Petersburg. Citizens will have an opportunity to prevent more loss of their freedom and save more of their money today at 4 p.m. the St. Petersburg City Council meeting, at 175 5th ST. N.. Remember, this is coming from the same mayor who said he wants to build a better quality of life for “the struggling, the vulnerable and voiceless“. Apparently that means paying more to the city and doing the work they insist get done. (More details about recycling program here and all stories here.)

The “progressives” running the St. Petersburg city government are planning to implement a “universal” recycling program by September. They will raise garbage bills $3-4 per month, place a new 90 gallon trash bin at each house and ultimately cut garbage service to once per week. Imagine St. Petersburg summers with a full week of garbage building up in the July heat. Imagine working hard to try to earn a living in the down economy our governments have created and then coming home to have to sort your trash out for the purposes of the extremists in charge. Imagine getting the letters from your friendly government and then ultimately the knock on the door that says “We notice that you haven’t been recycling”. There are no fines planned now for failure to recycle, but the time will come when the same extremists who forced this nonsense on its citizens will fine them for not recycling. In the meantime, they can suffer with higher garbage bills, less garbage service and radio tracking chips in their trash trashcans.

This is the same city council that tries to force companies to hire drunks, felons and drug addicts. The same city council that bans free speech on electronic signs. The same city government that endlessly raises taxes and has annual “budget shortfalls” as it spends the hard earned funds of its serf-class citizenry on feel good projects and cronies. Don’t let these extremists force you to recycle, pay more for it and have the tools to scold and fine you when you find better things to do with your time. Come out to the St. Petersburg City Council meeting today at 4 pm at City Hall (175 5th st. N). Parking is on the street or on the north side of 2nd Ave. N. between 4th and 5th street (free in that lot). “Open forum” will be at 4 pm where citizens get three minutes each address the rulers who claim to be in charge of our daily lives. The city will then hear a “report” on recycling after open forum, where they may allow comments from those who arrive after open forum is over- if they feel like it.

5 Replies:

This is just too funny, it hasn’t been 3 months since the newly elected city leaders have taken office and they are forcing taxes (well they call them fees, but they’re mandatory) on everyone in St. Petersburg, including those who can least afford it.

The majority of people in St. Pete voted for these tax and spend liberals. Those people got what they voted for. The rest of you got the shaft, and you’re going to continue to get it.

Of course this is funny to me because I don’t live in St. Petersburg, I live in Clearwater where we have curbside recycling and even went to huge barrels from bins recently. If it goes well perhaps we could go to once a week trash collection and save money. What an idea saving the citizens money!

Matthew.
This is not funny- This isn’t a pissing contest. Just because “progressives won “, doesn’t mean they should not have empathy for the other side. Progressives have no soul, just agendas and gangs of mindless prostitutes that take marching orders. They are dangerous.

They preach what is good for the community without consideration or empathy for not one single person.

Voting has become a losers game. I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t vote. It’s corruption and a vote on anything in this immoral society we live in is a vote for tyranny because of Party (group) gang tactics for power rather than American principles which protect life, liberty and property of every individual .

The only 2 options the people have is to move from the evil because the house of cards is stacked against them ., or if they can afford to fight city hall , stay and fight, unfortunately a lot of people are going to go bust including the progressives. Then it starts all over again, voting for the best of 2 evils.

I have no fix other than to say a lot of officials need to go to jail for illegal actions and they will be examples of the will of the law and the people that want liberty.

Well OK, not funny in a laughing at your expense sort of way. I saw the writing on the wall and I don’t live in St. Pete. It seems many voters are swayed by promises of rainbows and unicorns. If the last decade or so hasn’t shown that there are neither rainbows nor unicorns no matter what politicians promise then the people who elected them will never learn.

MAtt, thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy of these city leaders. You are right, the city will downgrade trash service to once per week..another “nudge” to force people to recycle. The economics of this will not work since the true cost will not be passed directly to consumers. Rather reserves will be raided and other taxes raised to subsidize and cover-up the true costs of this project. Recycling is great, but forced recycling and forced high costs are an insult.

Here is my letter to the editor today for the Times and others.

When Mayor Kriseman was inaugurated, he stated he would produce a better quality of life for the “struggling, vulnerable and voiceless” and was applauded by the City Council members and extreme liberal activists who elected him. Their hypocrisy was on display when they passed a mandatory garbage fee hike of more than $3 per month to impose recycling on the 90% of customers who have not voluntarily done so – the highest sanitation bill in Tampa Bay. The city claims there will be no forced recycling, but there will be a forced fee hike. There will be a radio tracking chip in each new recycling bin so the city can hound those who are not being “good” recycling supplicants – fines will follow one day. Low income part-time workers and retirees, plus busy single moms and others will have to pay more and work harder to sort their trash (the city will eventually go to once per week trash collection leaving rotting trash in the hot Florida sun). Charities will be deprived of recycling cash and no landfill space will be saved as the city loses revenue from burning trash to create electricity. Welcome to the “People’s Republic of St. Petersburg” where the “struggling, vulnerable and voiceless” will have a better quality of life when they simply do as they are told, pay more and serve the extremist progressives in charge.

If the citizens want to switch to one day for trash and the second day for recyclables that should be up to the citizens, and the only way I think we in Clearwater could get behind it is if it saved us money. However it would be the citizens requesting it, not the city forcing it on us. With the summer heat and stewing trash barrels it may never happen.

The (St. Petersburg Tribune) covered it this morning noting that garbage rates are going up more than ten percent with this increase. I fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Two months in and they’re raising fees and making them mandatory.

Of course the fees will help fund ‘local jobs’ because the RFPs will require that St. Pete residents be hired, even if people from Largo could do it cheaper and more effectively. The contract will also specify wages and benefits that the City Council feels are imperative. The city forcing its agenda on private enterprise to perfect their socialist utopia.

Way to go uninformed voters, you’re paying more for essential services like garbage pick up!

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